Good Law | Bad Law #124 - How to Beat Measles, Again w/ Nicholas Diamond

Outbreak outrage!

Aaron Freiwald, Managing Partner of Freiwald Law and host of the weekly podcast, Good Law | Bad Law, is joined by Georgetown University Law Professor Nicholas Diamond to discuss the anti-vax movement, the surge in measles around the country, and compulsory vaccination.

It seems like every day more and more people are being diagnosed with illnesses we thought were eliminated years ago. Illnesses like mumps, measles, and whooping cough have all started appearing again in recent years and can be tied back to unvaccinated children. Some may ask, “if the vaccines are so effective, why wouldn’t everyone get one?” It’s a valid question, but it has a complicated answer.

Professor Diamond, who also teaches at George Washington University in D.C. and is also a consultant to pharmaceutical companies, walks us through the reasons some people don’t get their children vaccinated, including religious objections and studies that concluded vaccines caused autism in young children. Although these studies have been disproven time and time again, many still rely on misinformation about vaccines circulated on the internet.

This is a very timely topic as just this week there were congressional hearings on compulsory vaccination and an announcement from the FDA that the health agency was going to look for ways to crack down on states that take a lax approach to enforcing vaccination regulations.

Now we ask you, how do we prevent the spread of these preventable diseases? Is it education, compulsory vaccination, or another solution we haven’t mentioned?